In this book, expert developer Dan Petit brings together all the practical, real-world techniques and skills developers need to succeed with VB6 in enterprise environments. From project management to database design, ActiveX controls to quality metrics, this book delivers solutions that are proven to work -- and insightful warnings about what not to do! In Part I, Petit introduces the enterprise VB6 project lifecycle, as well as key techniques for gathering requirements, using Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools effectively, documenting projects, establishing coding standards, and keeping development on track. Next, Petit presents a detailed discussion of the "ins and outs" of designing VB software, starting with architectural issues and then moving to user interfaces, application and database design. The book's thorough implementation coverage introduces solid VB and data access coding practices; best techniques for creating ActiveX controls; debugging distributed applications; and more. Finally, Petit walks step-by-step through testing, reviewing, and distributing software, including proven solutions and metrics for quality assurance.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
With its millions of users, Visual Basic is one of the most popular programming tools around. Real Visual Basic is a no-holds-barred tour of what works and what doesn't when VB takes on serious corporate development. VB developers or managers can improve the way they design and test code with this readable and often engaging book.
The standout feature of this title is the pull-no-punches style regarding Visual Basic. (Among other provocative statements, the book argues that Visual Basic 6 isn't as stable as its precursor, VB5--something that you might have discovered on your own--and that using INI files to store user preferences is usually a better strategy than dealing with the complexities of the Windows Registry.) By acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of VB, readers get a valuable real-world perspective on project development.
This book also delivers a nicely readable tour of today's iterative software project life cycle, and it has a lot to say about object design with VB, as well as testing and debugging, without a lot of the jargon that usually goes hand in hand with such material. The author believes in standards for coding in VB, and this book provides an excellent guide to naming and commenting styles. Of importance here is the perspective on the realities of project management. As the author points out, most projects today fail, but armed with the expertise provided in Real Visual Basic, VB developers or IS managers can improve their odds of success. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered: Design and coding tips for Visual Basic, myths about VB programming, Rapid Application Development (RAD), project life cycle types (brute force, waterfall, spiral, and hybrid), requirements gathering and use cases, documentation for end users and developers, analysis basics, estimating project size, metrics, COM fundamentals, user interface styles (modal and modeless forms, SDI, MDI, and Explorer-style applications), tips for form design and prototyping, object-oriented design primer (abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance), object relationships, UML diagrams, database design basics, coding tips (naming conventions and comments), Visual Basic 6 (new features, strengths, and weaknesses), database programming guidelines, performance for multi-user databases, programming with the Windows Registry and .INI files, building ActiveX controls, debugging and error handling, quality assurance for VB, testing strategies, and deploying VB applications.
From the Inside Flap
According to Microsoft's Web site, there are more than three million Visual Basic users in the world. Although computer languages come and go, with this wide a user base, it is safe to say that VB is here to stay for quite some time. Many of these users are computer hobbyists and students who are drawn to VB for its inherent simplicity compared to other languages. The others are primarily professional developers who use VB to create enterprise solutions. Moreover, since Microsoft began aggressively pushing the language in the corporate world with version 4 and the release of Windows 95, VB has managed to root itself firmly in the realm of corporate development.
Students find that practical corporate development differs greatly from the classic academic approaches in many regards. Whereas academic programming concentrates on thoroughness of process and sound programming technique, the almighty dollar drives corporate programming. When it comes to accountability, failure in the academic world can lead to a bad grade; in the corporate world, it can lead to financial collapse. The problem is that many corporate programmers get their start in academic circles or as hobbyists, working on interesting yet typically trivial examples. Their skills may be adequate for simple programs, but they get a serious reality check when, as professionals, they receive their first real VB project. All the rules change.
Even seasoned professionals can find the rigors of corporate development challenging, however. Companies expect a lot from Visual Basic programmers and managers, yet companies rarely provide the training they need to do their jobs successfully. There is also a tendency to choose VB as a tool for the wrong reasons and, consequently, end up expecting too much from the language. This book is intended to flush out common misconceptions and provide practical examples, pointing out those areas where companies make the biggest mistakes. While it may seem irreverent to criticize corporate practices in a book aimed at companies, the intention is to help corporations get the most out of Visual Basic as a tool and get the most bang for their buck. This is unlikely to take place without changing a few fundamental corporate beliefs and practices. What This Book Is About
Real Visual Basic explores the important practical aspects of Visual Basic development in the corporate world. It concentrates on answering questions such as, "How do I do that?" and "Why does VB do that?" as they pertain to various VB technologies. More important, though, it provides down-to-earth advice, answering perhaps the most important question of all, "Should I do that?" Because what may make sense on paper may not make sense in practice, this book offers solutions to real-life problems in corporate development. In the end, the goal is to help make your Visual Basic projects more successful.
Because many of the problems companies have with VB development stem from misunderstandings, Real Visual Basic addresses and dispels myths of corporate software development, particularly those that relate to Visual Basic. The goal is not to defend or attack Visual Basic (though I will do both), but rather to explore and expose the practical view. Many of the myths drive misguided practices. Many are general beliefs in the world of software development that are exacerbated by the inclusion of Visual Basic into the equation.
More than anything else, this book is about my experiences as a developer in the corporate world. While I make a living using Microsoft products, I don't feel obligated to protect them, and I am more than willing to point out their faults. To this end, I provide numerous anecdotal discussions, mostly in sidebars, drawn from my experiences, both good and bad, working as a professional developer. My goal in presenting this information is to provide real-life examples of practices I know work and do not work on VB projects. I hope these sections will help prevent you from making the same mistakes I did and will make your life as a VB professional that much easier.
This book covers a variety of topics, from database design to project management to hardcore VB coding (see Road Map section that follows). It may seem odd to include such a disparate array of topics, but this mixture represents the various aspects of software development that many VB developers and managers are exposed to in a corporate environment on a daily basis. They all contribute to the success or failure of VB projects. This Book's Audience
This book is intended primarily for developers and development team leads, but there is also a substantial amount of material about project management and quality assurance that technical managers will find useful. Moreover, as the corporate managers of tomorrow, programmers will find the project management topics invaluable as well. I assume that those readers who are programmers know the language well and that managers and team leaders have experience with managing Visual Basic projects. The major code examples are clear but nontrivial, and the discussions of management issues assume some level of expertise. Although some of the specific code materials are aimed at a more advanced audience, much of the material will be accessible to most programmers.
However, because even the basic aspects of project management and software design are challenging without a couple of years of experience, this is not a book for complete beginners. Software design, database modeling, and most of the other topics covered here are complex. To avoid repeating introductory materials that is presented better in other sources, Real Visual Basic assumes that the reader has a firm grasp of VB's capabilities as a language and defers to other sources when the material is either too introductory or too detailed to present here. Each chapter ends with an annotated "Further Reading" list, and a complete bibliography appears at the end of the book. What This Book Is Not About
Although it covers a wide array of topics, there are nevertheless a number of subjects beyond the scope of this book. Many of the topics not covered relate to corporate development but have received adequate treatment elsewhere. Others, while still important, have little connection to the corporate world, and I have omitted them for the sake of cohesion.
Bookstore shelves are absolutely covered with books about Internet development. It is one of the hottest topics around these days, and one that is best suited to individual treatment. Therefore, beyond a discussion of system architecture, no substantial Internet-related topics are explored. You will not learn how to make a browser; you will not learn about WebClasses, IIS, ASP, HTML, or XML; and you will not find out how to deploy Internet applications. If you are looking for a discussion of these topics, try another book.
Windows API programming is also a complicated topic, again deserving of separate treatment. Windows API (Win32 API) discussions appear only in the context of solutions to specific problems--no overviews or guidelines are provided, and this book is in no way an API reference. Detailed discussions of other APIs (MAPI, TAPI, DirectX, ODBC, etc.) are omitted as well. Authors have devoted entire books to these topics, and a chapter or two here would not do them justice.
Furthermore, you will see little in the way of COM internals. I'll present a few IUnknowns, an IDispatch or two, but mostly a whole lot of IDontCares. COM is far too vast a topic to include in detail here; so, instead, I concentrate on what makes COM important and practical to corporate VB programmers and spend very little time on what makes it tick under the hood.
Finally, Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) are relatively new technologies that are becoming popular in corporate settings. While you will see how you can leverage these tools in designing system architecture, I will not explore the mechanics of using them in any detail. Road Map to the Book's Contents
This book consists of the following four parts:
Part I, Development Prerequisites, introduces project management techniques and development lifecycles that form the structure of the remainder of the book. To help make your projects successful, the material in this section concentrates on avoiding common problems. Much of the material is not VB-specific, but rather focuses on Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools, of which VB is the most common, and general project misconceptions. This part also looks at requirements gathering and project documentation--two areas that are both neglected and critical for VB projects. Part II, Designing Visual Basic Software, provides a detailed discussion of the ins and outs of designing VB software. This part starts from the outside, looking at architectural concerns, then moves on to creating user interfaces and designing software and databases. Part III, Implementation, turns to more code-oriented topics. It covers solid, general VB coding practices and advanced data access coding implementations before turning to some advanced VB coding topics, including creating ActiveX controls and controlling asynchronous program flow. Finally, this part takes a detailed look at how to debug your VB applications. Part IV, Testing, Reviewing, and Distributing Software, covers the loose ends, including quality assurance and the things that typically take place after coding. This part looks at various ways to test VB applications and to measure their quality. Then there is an in-depth discussion of creating and enforcing coding standards, from naming conventions to commenting practices. The final chapter addresses ways to distribute your finished software. On-line Materials Many of the code examples discussed in this book are much too long to include in their entirety. However, complete code examples, including Visual Basic project files, can be found on-line.
In addition, this is where you can find any updates to this book, including errata and new material. The coding standards template mentioned in chapters 19 and 20 can be found here too. You will also find links to VB resources and tools, including Standards Master, plus author contact information. Acknowledgments
First things first. Hi, Mom.
At Addison Wesley Longman, numerous folks on both coasts contributed to this book. Many thanks to Gary Clarke, Rebecca Bence, Marilyn Rash, Eric Droukas, Tasha Schlake, Robin Bruce, Chanda Leary, and Kate Saliba. It was a pleasure to work with such a supportive team.
I have been very fortunate to have the help of several technical reviewers who verified the book's technical accuracy, reviewed its flow, and critiqued my writing style. Their feedback was indispensable, and along the way they caught many blunders and goofs that otherwise might have found their way into the final version. Any remaining blunders and goofs are mine alone. Many thanks to Derek H. Lawless and John P. McCartan of Solutech, Inc.; Ben Baird; Joseph LeVasseur; and William R. Epp.
My good friend Robert Patterson served as both a formal reviewer and an informal critic. Over the last year, we have had numerous discussions of the material in this book, and he consistently provided the honest and often blunt criticisms my work needed. He also holds the distinction of being the individual responsible for convincing me to become a professional developer. The world may never forgive him.
And, finally, I would like to thank my wife, Dee, who somehow managed to put up with my head being buried in research materials and my computer for a year while I wrote this book. She's my strongest supporter and without her this book would not have been possible.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent opinions and reco's for VB Development,
By
This review is from: Real Visual Basic: A Practical Approach to Enterprise Development in the Corporate World (Paperback)
This is a broad scoped book that "lays it on the line" in terms of what to do, and not do, in VB. You should have a good bit of VB programming under your belt to appreciate the import of what he says.He also has a lot of recommended readings on each of the many topics. He praises and criticizes VB... in all the right places, in my opinion. Although he criticizes VB 6 for bugs, I have found VB6 not to be so buggy. But I also take a more conservative approach to using the newest features. The benefit of this book is that it will guide you in your use of VB. There are a few interesting code snippets. But the purpose of this book is not to get at the code, but to get the overall direction of when and how to use VB to develop medium to large projects. Another area where he does great is in his coverage of database topics. I really liked his verbal descriptions of how to implement a homegrown pessimistic and optimistic locking scheme. I like VB, and I like this book. I would put it on the scale with McConnell's books in terms of general direction. But it is not like Bruce McKinney's book in terms of code and examples. This is a "deep thinker's" book. In that you often have to stop and think about his comments and how they apply to your use of VB. For example, should you move to ADO, should you use Triggers, what should your coding style/standards be. He also does an excellent job on the systems analysis side of the equation. I found myself agreeing with him about 80 % of the time. I'm more conservative when it comes to implementing COM, DCOM and even basic objects. His coverage of COM and DCOM was also terrific. He describes the downsides to n-tier development... and why they often fail. John Dunbar, Sugar Land, TX (near Houston)
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book that assembles your VB skills.,
This review is from: Real Visual Basic: A Practical Approach to Enterprise Development in the Corporate World (Paperback)
Visual Basic is becoming the language of choice for a great portion of corporate development. This is mainly due to the ease of use of the language and also to the availability of many Visual Basic programmers. This trend has influenced many would be programmers to choose the Visual Basic as their programming language, for it is easier to learn. However, if some one wants to undertake a serious VB project, then the need arises for a serious developer. Many books offer an outstanding approach to teaching the necessary skills to master the mechanics of Visual Basic and show you how you can develop an object based distributed software. Among these books are those written by my favorite authors Jim Maloney and Deborah Kurata. However, this book " Real Visual Basic" by Dan Petit assembles all the skills, bolts and nuts one acquires from all other books and experiences. The author has eloquently gathered all those factors that make or break a visual basic project. The book contains a little code, but talks much about what is required to keep in mind when you are doing a Visual Basic project. And to my opinion that is what makes this book appealing. This book is a must read for those who are serious about VB. If you are a project leader it shows you the pitfalls that you must be aware of when using VB. If you are in the development team it teaches you how to apply your VB skills to make the project a success. Reading this book will not only teach you the object oriented techniques using VB, but will take you further into many stages of the life-cycle of the project from inception, realization and implementation. In the implementation the book walks you through coding practices, VB short comings, data access and OLE DB.All in all this book will give you a hard to find information that is essential for project success. However, to take the information you get from this to the max, use it in conjunction with the other book written by Paul R. Reed. The later is titled "Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML". It takes you to new level where you can both use UML and Visual Basic in a true object oriented fashion. This book can also help those working towards Microsoft certification MCSD.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Full overview of the "Does" and "Dont's" and then some,
By Cal LaFollett (Clearwater, FL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Real Visual Basic: A Practical Approach to Enterprise Development in the Corporate World (Paperback)
I have to agree with John Dunbar's earlier review of this book. I have found it to be an excellent source for corporate development using VB. BUT the author, Dan Petit, is also aware that VB is not the answer to every application and does an outstanding job at explaining why.Part 1 of the 4 Part book gives a well thought out overview of the Full Lifecycle Development of a software application. It is this type of knowledge that every programmer, not just a VBer, should know and follow on a daily basis. Dan is also wise enough to stay within his parameters in writing this book. Being carefull not to cover details that have already been over done. He is not shy in recommending further reading if you care to dive into a particular subject at greater length. I can appreciate that kind of generosity. He does't write with a large ego but with the idea of sharing knowledge. All in all, this is a VERY professionally based book (i.e. not for the novice user). It gives insight into the corporate development community that professional programmers should have. I can't wait to see what other tid bits of knowledge will come from Dan's word processor next! Keep it up Dan.
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